September 29, 2006

"Movie Friday" will be put to its most kind, horrible death with this video that shows an Ewok blowing itself up. Let's face it: A suicidal moppet is the high-water mark for the Star Wars franchise as a whole, and I am glad the folks at MTV.com captured it in all its glory.

You might be inclined to think that "Movie Friday" is a poorly thought-out and lame attempt to provide quick entertainment and a modicum of information with a minimum of effort, but you'd be wholly wrong: It's a carefully thought-out and lame attempt to provide quick entertainment and a modicum of information with a minimum of effort.

It's perhaps ominous to note that the new Banjo-Kazooie trailer hints at all the wonderful stuff you'll be able to collect.

But I know I'm glad Microsoft and Rare are reviving the cutesy platformer on Xbox 360. And the trailer for this all-new Banjo-Kazooie for the Xbox 360 is perfect for today's carefree, "Movie Friday" theme.

But kids: Please remember that birds are not to be used as chainsaws for interior remodeling.

Remember when you trudged into school on a snowy New York morning and almost no one else decided to show? So they shoved you and the six other losers who were dumb enough to come to school into a freezing cold auditorium and let you watch movies all day? Wasn't that a wonderful treat?

And a note on The Darkness: It looks really fun, and was one of the most intriguing titles at this year's E3. I'm not sure why 2K Games decided to make this overblown trailer that's wholly devoid of the creepy cool first-person shooting that makes up this game's play.

September 28, 2006

The Halo goldmine is about to be tapped but good: Microsoft announced two new Halo projects at its X06 conference in Barcelona. One of these is a mysterious new Xbox 360 title being worked on by a brand-new studio cofounded by film director Peter Jackson.

The other project is a real-time strategy from the developers of Age of Empires and its sequels. HaloWars lets you play as the humans against the Covenant in a story that takes place before the original Halo. According to Ensemble, the game is being made with the Xbox 360 in mind, which hopefully means its control scheme won't suck runny eggs.

Developer Red Octane announced Xbox 360 owners will be rocking out to Guitar Hero II. Not only did the company announce the game for the 360 at this year's X06 conference in Barcelona, but its head of publishing promised there'd be a new Xbox-specific controller as well as lots of content for the game available for download via Xbox Live.

“We believe there is no better title to feature micro-transactions than a music game like Guitar Hero II, where the content is the basis of your experience. The relationship with the Xbox Live® Marketplace creates endless possibilities for exclusive content,” Dusty Welch said in the company's press release on the matter.

September 27, 2006

Microsoft's Barcelona X06 exhibition is taking place right this very minute, and it seems there is some very good news for Xbox fans...

Such as....

DOOM for Xbox Live Arcade with 4-player cooperative and competitive play.
A Halo-based real-time strategy coming from the makers of Age of Empires.
A new Project Gotham Racing.
A new Banjo-Kazooie game.
Two exclusive downloadable episodes for Grand Theft Auto IV for the Xbox 360.
An Xbox 360-exclusive Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Game.
The release of the $199 HD-DVD player in August. Microsoft is packaging this with King Kong and a remote controller.
And a Marvel comics-based massively multiplayer online title for Xbox 360.

The big stupidhead Internet rumor of the second was that Resident Evil 5, Capcom's zombie-shooting epic in-the-making, was going to an Xbox 360 exclusive.

Apparently, no one on the InterWeb remembered that Capcom had tried to make the Resident Evil exclusively for the Nintendo GameCube, and cut that — pardon my boorishness — crap the second it began to smell. Anyone who played Resident Evil 4 on the GameCube knew Capcom would be moving that title up to the deeeluxe apartment in the sky that was the PlayStation 2.

So. As if the matter needed clarification, Capcom said this today: “Just to be clear, [Resident Evil 5 will have] a multiplatform simultaneous launch on PS3 and Xbox 360.”

September 26, 2006

Basketball, with its "rules" and inexplicable dearth of "shell-based weaponry" is a now rather-outmoded concept. Truly, the kids they are crying out for a new baskeball experience, one with giant apes and ghosts and evil clones of plumbers.

Now yes, this game is old news, having quickly come and gone amid the hype of this September's Tokyo Game Show. But it's rapidly become my guilty pleasure, an absurdist fantasy where a slam dunk can net me about 70 points and defense is some distant concern. People have seen me on public transportation, violently slashing the Nintendo DS stylus so as to make my team of modern-day colossi do my video bidding. And the people on the F train have heard my exultant cries as Mario, in fact, takes it the hole.

Midway has gotten into the swing of this InterWeb craze. It's put up profiles for Mortal Kombat mainstays Sub-Zero and Scorpion.

In case you were wondering, Sub-Zero really likes Robot Chicken. And he speaketh thus: "Do not confuse me with my older brother of the same name. His soul became tainted when he died at the hands of Scorpion. He has become the wraith known as Noob Saibot."

Oh, and Scorpion tried his hand at a cooking show. He's a true renaissance man and a tortured soul who probably should consider putting Morissey on his MySpace page.